In Mexico last week an Uber was twice the cost of using inDriver. Our driver reported Uber taking 50% of the fare which is why so many users and drivers had switched to inDriver.
Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all
121–130 of 158 posts
Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all
#122I just know that when Uber was charging $60 for a ride to the airport (a couple years ago it was half that), my sister found a way to take transit for $3. This was in Seattle.
Works great if you’re very near transit or can have someone figure out that last mile for you. Works poorly if you’re not. I would take public transit where I live but I’m about 1-2 miles from the nearest bus stop that could get me to the airport (too far to walk with checked luggage). No big lots or houses where I live - people crammed in. The bus is unpredictable and runs infrequently and takes a very long route to…
The Greater Seattle area has plenty of "park-n-ride" areas with huge parking lots. For 2 months after taking a new job in Downtown Seattle, I simply drove to a park-n-ride in Bellevue and took the bus to work. The bus was slow but frequent, and for the most part had its dedicated lane so not quite affected by traffic. Plus, you can simply read, listen to music, or just relax on the bus. After that I was able to move into an apartment right next to the bus stop ;)
Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all
#123Ultimately you can NOT "magically" negate "Last Mile Costs" in cities and towns where the Last Mile path distance is enormous. Did my MBA thesis on this subject with the benefit of 20 years of engineering experience. The numbers simply do not work unless you change how cities and residences are built, which would cost far more than you'd ever gain from solving Last Mile costs - the breakeven time is of the order of 1…
I would also be extremely interested in reading your thesis.
Ditto
Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
And previous well functioning economies get destroyed in the process
If pervious economies were so well functioning, why couldn't I easily order pretty much any food from any restaurant within a 50 mile radius with a click of a button before Uber and DoorDash came along?
Two things can be simultaneously true
- delivery was under-served and over-priced, and taxis charged too much, often because of viciously expensive auctions for limited legal taxicab slots, with the city raking it in and the drivers having to recoup it from fares
- Uber and friends are exploitative dumping schemes that tighten the screws on their gig workers even while they firehose money at customers
Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all
#125I just know that when Uber was charging $60 for a ride to the airport (a couple years ago it was half that), my sister found a way to take transit for $3. This was in Seattle.
I live an hour away from the nearest airport. Of course public transit can take me, but it usually would take me anywhere between 2-3 hours if I account for all the transfers I missed. I started using Uber and it charged me about $60, which I found reasonable for a ride that long. In pandemic it became $150-200, and now it still regularly hovers around $120.
I've realized that I can just drive to the airport, pay for long term parking ($13/day) and still come out even with Uber fares for trips as long as 3 weeks. This is something I used to do a decade ago. It's hilarious that we have gone a full circle on this.
Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's just creative accounting. Uber actually incurred a $2B loss, but for some reason they insist on ignoring expenses when calculating their "profits".
The 2B "loss" was a downswing of Didi stock, which Uber has a big stake on; AFAIK Uber didn't actually liquidate that position, so it's more of a paper money loss. See [0] As for "creative accounting", pretty much everyone in this industry segment uses EBITDA. That's the language investors and media use to talk about earnings calls for not just Uber, but also Lyft, Doordash, etc. If you want to make a case for why GA…
Just to be clear, Uber has never been profitable even on an EBITDA basis. This right here says -$0.9 billion for the last quarter: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UBER/uber-technolo.... They use "Adjusted EBITDA" to try and say they're profitable, which is an attempt to remove non-recurring expenses. That is perfectly fair if they're really non-recurring, but it's also perfectly fair to be skeptical when there have been exactly zero quarters in over a decade now in which they have brought in revenue in excess of their expenses, even if they claim those expenses were unexpected.
Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's just creative accounting. Uber actually incurred a $2B loss, but for some reason they insist on ignoring expenses when calculating their "profits".
The 2B "loss" was a downswing of Didi stock, which Uber has a big stake on; AFAIK Uber didn't actually liquidate that position, so it's more of a paper money loss. See [0] As for "creative accounting", pretty much everyone in this industry segment uses EBITDA. That's the language investors and media use to talk about earnings calls for not just Uber, but also Lyft, Doordash, etc. If you want to make a case for why GA…
I'll admit, I should've checked their Q3 numbers before, regarding the write-off, but they're nowhere near profitability even if you ignore that.
For example, in the table linked above, they've accounted for all revenues, but not attributed all of their expenses by segment. According to their filing their total loss from operations across all segments was $572M, however if you add up all their segments in the table, they come out to a $8M profit. That's what bothers me. If a company has 3 segments that generate 100% of its revenue, how can it claim that $600M in operating expenses shouldn't be attributed to any of those segments, thus making one of those segments profitable.
I think everybody in the industry segment uses the same sketchy metrics because they are also terribly unprofitable.
Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
A Ponzi scheme requires an element of fraud. Very difficult to tell me that building a global fleet of ride hailing and being transparent with the financials is a Ponzi scheme. The outcome might be similar (later investors bearing most of the losses) but that's more of an investor problem and not fraud.
They probably mean a Pyramid scheme. In regular use, Ponzi and Pyramid schemes are interchangeable terms because you need new money to stay afloat. Legally they're different because a Ponzi scheme requires lying about where the returns are coming from, but a Pyramid scheme can be entirely truthful about the finances.
It's more of a funnel system where they take investor $$ and channel that to employees and in discounts to customers.
Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all
#129Archived: https://archive.ph/kCkXz